


Safe Haven

by skatzaa



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Fantasy, Magic, Shapeshifting, Trope Subversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 10:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21372871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/pseuds/skatzaa
Summary: A hawk finds its way into a tower.
Relationships: Lady locked in a tower/Lady who turns into a hawk, Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 3
Kudos: 38
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2019





	Safe Haven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elstaplador](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/gifts).

> Elstaplador, I hope you enjoy! This started out much more heavily inspired by your prompt, before it sort of took itself and morphed into something else.

Roon flew.

She was built for open skies and sharp, controlled dives, but still she was quicker and more nimble than the hunters. Their false wings creaked behind her, fabric against bone and rope. They were big and slow, but false wings wouldn’t tire. They’d catch her eventually.

She dove again beneath a branch, close enough that she felt its bark against her feathers, lighter than snowfall. She knew this forest in her heart; the tower was close. She only had a little farther to go.

The hunters cursed in rough, guttural noises she couldn’t understand in this form. They were drawing closer, if she could now hear them—she _needed_ to reach the protective circle, and soon.

Around the slender trunk of a sapling and yes, there—stonework stretching toward a gap in the foliage, bright beneath the light of the full moon.

Magick’s breath crackled along her primaries as one of the hunters attempted to bind her with a spell. They wouldn’t succeed when she wore her feathers; for now, she was safe. But exhaustion dragged at her wings, and she wouldn’t be able to hold this form for much longer.

Roon sped toward the tower, dodging branches and twisting around trunks, and then she was past the treeline and into the open air. Now, it was a race to enter the circle before the hunters reached her.

She was faster.

The scorching heat of a fire spell bloomed around her, but it did not touch her. And then—the caress of Zhoya’s protective circle, so strong under the full moon that it forced the flames to halt in the air, a fiery wall at her tail.

She forced herself to rise, aiming for the opening near the halfway point of the tower. Pulling up, she flapped sharply to slow her progress. The stone wasn’t comfortable against her talons, but she hopped about on the sill to seek out the hunters.

There was one on the edge of the clearing, outside of the reach of the protective sigils carved into the ground. They were no longer flying but instead standing among the tree roots, the monstrous false wings hanging limp from the harness around their chest and back. Their face was covered by a black mask, and when they turned to look at something beyond Roon’s sight, she saw something glint on the mask’s hooked beak.

A second hunter, this one also shadowing the treeline, flew around to meet the first and swooped down to land beside them. They must have communicated, but from this distance she couldn’t even hear the garbled sounds. 

As one, they turned to look at her, eye pieces flashing in the moonlight. It made her feathers feel as though they had been forced in the wrong direction.

The hunters were joined by their third, this one wearing a blank, featureless mask that ruffled her feathers more than the mimicked beaks. All three stared at her for a moment longer, their gazes cutting behind the masks. Then they turned and melted back into the forest.

Roon stayed where she was, watching, but they didn’t return. She waited until she could no longer feel the frantic flapping of her heart, until it was harder to wear her feathers than to not.

In one motion, she turned, stepped off the sill, and shed her feathers.

Soft feet hit the cold, stone floor and she dashed away from the window. Her mind felt like soft wool, as it always did immediately following a shift, her thoughts still belonging, in part, to the hawk. She knew she needed to rest, but first, she needed new attire, because she still wore the rough cut pants and tunics the guards had forced her into the day before. She would not wear them for a moment longer if she had the choice.

It took another three strides to cross the room to the heavy oak door. She pushed it open as slowly as her burning muscles would allow, straining to hear. Her senses were so _dull_ in this skin. The difference always made her ache as her body tried to compensate for the missing sensation.

Nothing. 

Good. she didn’t want her arrival to cause a commotion.

Roon pushed the door open further and slipped through.

She woke to the soft morning sun in her eyes and a softer bed beneath her body. Groaning—because she would much rather stay here but knew her report would be sorely needed, and soon—Roon pushed herself to sitting upright.

As if on cue, the door swung open and Zhoya appeared in the room, dressed in only a simple gown. In the time Roon had been away, she’d released her hair from its many braids and used her magick to breathe buoyancy back into the mass of wild curls, which now floated about her head as if a dark storm cloud.

Zhoya looked, and saw Roon awake, and her happiness glowed brighter than the sun.

Roon felt her own joy grow in response, the exhaustion and the fear of the camps and the chase here finally fading away. She reached out and Zhoya came to her, clasping Roon’s hand between her palms as she settled herself on the bed’s edge.

In the quiet, Roon could make out the faint sounds of the tower coming to life around her in the early morning. Eilleh would be starting on the morning meal, her sister Nayea at her side as she always was. Rila would be complaining to no one in particular about the washing, but doing it anyway. Khiath was likely still asleep, but Azare would be by soon to wake him. And a hundred other souls would soon begin their day, quiet and peaceful.

Roon fought the urge to drop her gaze to the coverlet on her lap. Instead, she met Zhoya’s warm eyes, light in her face, and said, “I wasn’t able to get them all out.”

Zhoya simply looked at her and released her hand, reaching out to cup her face instead. Roon allowed her eyes to flutter shut and she leaned into the touch.

“I know,” Zhoya said. Her fingers never once strayed to what remained of Roon’s hair, hacked short by the guards at the camp, but neither did she ignore entirely Roon’s loss. It simply  _ was _ , as many things were with Zhoya. “We never expected you to save everyone. And there will be others who need our help.”

Roon opened her eyes, already shaking her head. 

“I led the hunters straight to our doorstep,” she protested, voice little more than a whisper. “They have seen the shape and arrangement of my feathers, and will know to look for me, and others, in the part of the forest.”

Zhoya tightened her grip on Roon’s face. Her eyes were molten amber, her gaze fierce and defiant.

“There will be others for that too. You are not our own hope against them,” she said, and then her fingers and tone gentled once more. “It is time for you to rest, my love. You’ve done more than enough for now.”

Roon turned her face to kiss Zhoya’s palm, eyes closing against the sting of tears. 

She had worn herself too thin without noticing. So many months spent in flight, moving from one camp to the next, trying to free the young men and women who had been taken by the hunters. Those able to change skins she had directed here, where they would be safe and useful, if they so chose. For the others, she did her best to send them in one direction and flee in the other, drawing the attention of the hunters and their guards herself so they could escape. But no matter how often she left the tower or how fast she flew, it seemed there was always more camps, with more imprisoned within, than there had been before.

Zhoya came closer and engulfed Roon in her arms. Roon pressed her face to Zhoya’s shoulder and let the anger and fear and revulsion shudder through her. She brought her hands up and gripped the fabric of Zhoya’s gown. Rila would complain about wrinkles in the fabric when she found out, but Roon didn’t care.

“Rest now,” Zhoya told her, voice like wind through the trees. She was weaving another protective spell, this one much smaller but no less meticulously crafted. Roon felt it settle over her skin like the finest lace shawl. “I will watch over you.”

Yes. The people of the tower, herself included, would be safe and protected for as long as Zhoya still breathed from within the tower’s stone.

Once, she hadn’t thought their circumstances would allow anything between them. She had thought a hawk forever destined to fly away and a woman forced to remain here by the rules her own magick would have no common ground between them.

She felt Zhoya shift and lay a kiss to the crown of her head. She curled a little closer in response.

Roon had not thought it was possible, but Zhoya had proved her wrong—then, and many times since.

Zhoya pulled back, only to press Roon into lying back on the bed again and join her a heartbeat later. Wrinkles and Rila's complaints be damned.

She would rest, and trust in Zhoya’s protection, until she was able to work to undermine the hunters once more. And for now, she would enjoy the warmth of Zhoya’s body next to hers, the steady beating of her heart beneath Roon’s ear. She would tease Khiath and visit the nurseries to help teach Zelet’s youngest fledgling how to fly. And she would. . .

Roon slept.

**Author's Note:**

> There is so much more to this world, lurking just out of my grasp. Maybe I'll return some day, but I make no promises.
> 
> Funny thing about rules. Zhoya has to breath within the tower's stone in order for her protective magick to still be effective, but there are a few ways that requirement could still be effective...
> 
> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
